Archive for the ‘grist’ Category

ha, floppy own-brand tortilla chips, peanuts and Lilt and vodka (just a very small medical dash for my damaged tropical child) for breakfast. Happy New Year. Can’t sleep so let my betters rest. A guitar string just pinged on the wall so I must be Accompanied.

I don’t know if you use Discogs but I do and I like it. I’m not one of those psychedelic revolutionaries that acts like a soul-smarm priest who’s pretending he hasn’t got anything in his underpants. I have baby, it’s here. I believe in the meta-fundamentals of the market. I believe in the Big Deal, it is holy to me. If a has it, and b wants it, then so be it and let’s haggle the fucker across. We are good creatures, don’t get me wrong, and people forget it and then get all pious when someone helps a brother out as if it isn’t written into us like hunger, violence and sorrow, but in that sense humans are alright and can’t help but help. Ants help ants, wolves howl for the chase, Biiiig Issue etc. Yeah, but fuck the Old Ways and Record Collector and that. My The Best Of Abba used to say £40 in the Book, but, uh, the internets is grease for human souls and the funny thing about capitalism, cos all human history is irony, is that which is finessed is also almost complete & thus over, man. What I mean is the web is The Final Auction, and that goes for eBay as much as Tahrir square or whatever. OK.

So, if you’re still with me, or ever were, then here is a racing tip for the lowest common denominator written on a peice of internet paper. Our pal Si, you shall know him by his name up there, has got at least one copy of Tripel 004 going at £2. Now I don’t cast aspersions on Simon, because of what I’ve said above, and because he is someone who both likes to live simply and also used to run an online shop, and since the two are incompatible the former will inevitably win out over the latter, thank goodness fror his sake. Tripel 004?, I hear you ask in your unripe foolishness, like dogs questioning the unlikely appearance of the Ace in the great fucking help of the sleight of hand! Well, way back when when there was no history of that to make a mad old man tell it like this now, yer Dave, my fucking Dave, in his Gold-souled wish for something more meaningful than what’s measured in money, stumped up for the Split. A thousand fucking pounds. Mastered by the fucking Faroe Goodiepal on a reel-to-reel (he says) according to his special specifications. Dubplates & Mastering. A picture disc. Designed by Animals On Wheels. Me half-cut in an amusment arcade in Padstow throwing it down like a Maori warrior or some PNG shit. It’s all fucking grist. Two Thousand & Five, Dave on the concrete tip, the audio derive through the raw tripped-out beauty of sound, where even TV cookshows can get souffled into something just-so that the absence of words leaves your dumb face in a squinch whilst your mind races for HELP. You know James Ferraro? Well, it’s not like that music-wise but it isn’t just the chefs. I feel this strongly. There’s a blankness, an overloadedness of symbols, that was in the recipe. Play the records side by side. Mix them together perhaps. And yeah, it’s half a giraffe of probably the best thing I ever did or will. I’m on Discogs, and you can buy the CD-R off me for not-a-penny-less than 5 quid, and it might be the complete thing, but that record is All Gold, solid fucking gold, and the only reason you don’t know it is because nobody told you, but I’m telling you now.

So, what I’m asking you to do, is please buy the record off Simon. I think the market value is more like £4.50, at least, so you’d be getting a good deal. We still live under a capitalist system, but this is a time of renewal, traditionally. Why not make it your first symbolic purchase of 2012? Please.

Had a bit of a reggae windfall this week. I’m getting used to the heartache of seeing a box of records lying about in Resale, falling upon them like Indiana Jones, but then being told they are still to be looked at and then never seeing them again. The other week there was a box of jazz treasures with a microwave sitting on top of a warping copy of A Love Supreme and all I could do was try to minimise the damage. Anyway, really fucking weirdly, or perhaps because of the recession/collapse of so-called Western Democracy, Resale Al saw me sideling about the aisles the other day and almost conspiratorially informed me that there was a box of records in the kitchen that I might want to have a look at. I’d actually seen them about 3 weeks previously but had given up all hope they’d appear in the shop. Anyway, nice seam of the black gold stuff:

Here’s a classic bit of Grist, or at least it is if you’re me. So, what, two years ago or thereabouts I do that song Evil which has just a smidgen of a sample of some guitar and some claps from some Beta Band tune – I don’t even know which one to be honest. I don’t do much sampling any more (in fact I keep meaning to force myself back into it because I’m obviously not a proper musician and I could do with the assistance basically) but when I do I tend to sort of shut my eyes when I’m doing it like I won’t be blamed for nicking the cookies. I don’t fetishize samples anyway, cos it’s 2010 innit? Maybe I would if I knew how to slice a loop onto my MPC but I’m essentially a dickhead and I march to a different drum. So yeah, because I actually like the Beta Band (one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to and I don’t really know why, cos apart from the films they just stood there and played and normally I like a bit of something going on) I kind of got infected with the vibe and to my mind that tune owes more than a few strums and claps to the old BB. There’s the kind of underdog’s ontological wrestling bout feel or tale of spiritual redemption or whatever it is that sounds like such a sincere rallying cry kinda vibe coming out of Steve Mason’s mouth and has the power to uplift in some weirdly northern English soully type of way. Hmm, put like that maybe the song owes nothing to The Beta Band ha ha! Anyway as soon as my pal Pilar in Hamburg heard the tune she professed herself a fan and before long was on at me about making a 7″ on which it would feature. Given she hadn’t engaged in the joys of negotiating one’s way through the treacherous terrain that one must cross to produce a piece of vinyl I was not holding my breath, but the project has crept along over the months for something approaching a couple of years. Then, recently, I heard the Greenmind bloke Mr Baker had booked Steve Mason to play at The Haymakers in Cambridge and I asked to support, only in part because I thought it would be funny to bust out the track in front of him and see if his face did something funny. Plus, if I’m honest, I thought he might like it. For one thing of all the music he’s made over the years I am a particular fan of his Sings Nelly Foggit’s Blues in Me and the Pharaohs record as King Biscuit Time, and in particular the track Little White. In fact just doing a bit of research for this post I came across the following description of the song by an Amazon customer:

“The EP’s real gem is ‘Little White’, a short, sombre effort that really doesn’t sound like anyone else – Mason really is some sort of unfocused genius with melody, and the sheer colour of his music. “

Excellently put, I would say. I’ve tried to rip off that short sombre vibe matey refers to several times, I can assure you.

Anyway, despite the fact that I forget the power supply to my mixer and it throws me a bit the gig goes quite well. Partly this is due to the fact that Simon decides to pay me in Guinness and partly because the soundman Rob misunderstands my request for a high table and has me sort of sat at a desk, which seems to work and lends itself to a whole range of intuitive upper body performance tics. After a couple of tunes I am pleased to see obvious signs that Mr Mason is not only present but also possibly enjoying himself. Alas, however, at the very point at which Evil begins he rises from his chair and goes to exit through the back door, at which point Simon (who is hip to my little Evil plan) twigs what is going on and hurries over to him to awkwardly explain that he is about to miss something he may well not give a fuck about. Indeed this must be the case for after he cocks an ear for a few seconds in the direction of the stage he continues out the door and I am ever so mildly crushed.

Then the Steve Mason section of the evening begins and although the band have a slight air of the “what the hell are we doing at The Haymakers” about them everything sounds pretty tight and polished and Steve’s voice carries everything along in that manner which is oddly difficult to define, and by the time they do I Walk The Earth there is a sense of BRITISH SOUL UNDENIABILITY feedbacking around the North Cambridge pub. After the show Steve’s reputation for not really being a fan of bullshit leaves me unwilling to exploit any shmoozing opportunities, and besides I’m enjoying some agreeably random chats with some agreeably random punters. However, just as I’m set to leave my Guinness levels must have been sufficiently high for me to speculate that it is not entirely unreasonable for the support band to say goodbye to the main act and when I do this I am pleasantly surprised to quickly find my “old man in a pub” routine, as Steve styles it, praised for its virtues. He also speaks to me quite matter of factly about a couple of other support slots I might step into on the rest of the tour, and asks me if I have a pen to write down my number. As I don’t he darts back inside the pub and when he doesn’t reappear for a few minutes I follow him inside because I am concerned that I am the one getting the favour and he’s the one doing the legwork, and, sure enough, there’s Steve Mason from The Beta Band at the bar queuing up to get a fucking pen so he can write down Pete Um’s number. I should relish this funny little moment of course, but instead I just feel massively Englishly awkward as usual.

Anyway, blah blah blah, eventually I get asked to play London and Brighton but unfortunately I can’t do Brighton because I have to go to Huntingdon to learn about mentees the following day but I do get to play Cargo last week. My set isn’t that great, partly because the whole Neil thing makes standing up on-stage and asking for attention a bit pointless but also because it is a bit pointless when the sell-out crowd are watching the World Cup in the adjacent bar, or all of them apart from about 15 people anyway. Luckily for me however, one of those people is Steve Duffield, formerly of The Beta Band. Thus it is that when I wake up the next day and switch on my computer I have a Facebook friend request from Mr Duffield, who is gratifyingly keen to find out where one can buy Pete Um vinyl online. As usual when anyone asks me this question, and in marked contrast to the amount of effort I generally put into making sure this information is anywhere near under anyone’s nose, I send Steve an exhaustive list of where you can get your hands on that sweet Um shit. As an afterthought, and because I’m half thinking about Evil and The Beta Band connection, I mention that there’s meant to be a single coming out of Germany but I don’t know where you can buy it. About a month previously Pilar had told me I should be receiving my personal copies of the record in the post within 7 working days but since I’d seen neither hide nor hair of them I’d come to believe they were missing for good. So, with a degree of spooky inevitability, as soon as I’ve sent the Facebook message and go in search of cups of tea and whatnot, I discover the bloody things are on our downstairs table. And this, dear reader, is how the first person to buy Pete Um’s Evil is a member of the group that sorta inspired the song. Pretty cool huh?

So, if anyone wants to buy into the conceptual wormhole that has Steve Duffield doing for the Um brand what John Cusack did for his old outfit, or even just buy a copy of the 7″, I have a few available at, say… £3.99?

I wish I had a link to direct people to a place where you can buy it online, as you can somewhere, but I am waiting on that. Suffice to say that the single is a split between me and Miss Hawaii, is the first release on HomeRec and has no catalogue number as far as I can tell. My tracks are of course Evil, as well as That’s Too Close. Miss Hawaii brings us Oyasumi. 300 for the world on randomly-coloured vinyl, i.e. they are all different!

Yesterday I was in the Cat’s Protection League doing dumb things like wondering if I should spend £7 pounds on a hugely outsized cream-coloured kind of, uh… ornate designer bling streetwear jacket and just about resisting but then hardly wondering at all whether i should spend 50p a pop on some old 78s of Maori music and a version of Onward Christian Soldiers and a sweet looking 10″ of some Polish spoken word. Whilst I was in there I hear some voices outside, and in my nosey way I clock this Mill Road Character woman (who I can always scent a bit of a story about because she has these fiercely intelligent eyes and a way about her that just suggests she’s a bit of a wrong ‘un) and another, older female companion. Anyway, Wrong Lady is saying something like “How much is that? That’s nice that is. Have you got four pounds on you you could lend me?” and I have to say I’m immediately thinking the worst of her. Sadly, it turns out I’m not entirely on the wrong track of the Wrong because a minute or some later she comes up to the counter with a cat-transporter-box thing and says to the Cat Woman “Do you know how much this is? Is it two pounds? Is it two pounds is it? Cat Woman smells a rat and asks her co-worker out the back how she put on the item and quickly the chancer-lady starts going “Or was it… four? Was it two, or four? No, no that’s fine. I’ve got a Burmese, see?” As soon as she leaves the cat persons start muttering about how this isn’t the first time.
Then I go into the RSPCA and I’m buying a Dictators 12″ and this short, intense-looking spoddy chap asks the manageress in posh, clipped tones “Have you any Pevsners?” And when she looks a bit in askance he just reiterates “Pevsners”. “Everything we have is on the shelves…?” she attempts, and then as she kind of gives up and walks off he clarifies slightly by saying “I’m looking for the County Durham one…”. Anyway, I know I was in animal shops but it all felt a bit anthropologically very Cambridge indeed.

Me and Simon had this conversation the other day about the Japanese-looking chap who is always on Mill Road and apparently has been bothering our separate curious minds. He’s always alone, and although quite neatly turned out and well-groomed has slightly well-worn elements on his clothing, like where the backpack he habitually carries has rubbed into the fabric of his jacket etc. He is often seen smoking and drinking outside local pubs and cafes and usually carries an umbrella. Apparently Simon has mentioned him in his lyrics somewhere. Anyway the conversation with Simon put me in mind of one I’d had with my brother about how sensitive observers of the human condition are often spurred to travel to foreign lands not so much out of an adventurous urge to encounter the new but rather to escape the maddeningly familiar, and in particular the banality of the background noise that is immediately apprehensible as a native. My brother used the example of his recent trip to Colombia and how shitty commercial radio there was nothing like the awfulness of its UK equivalent. We speculated that this Japanese exile was merely resting his troubled intellect in what for us was our over-familiar numbingly-crap lowest common denominator British street culture, almost (but not quite, lest it seems like I am getting carried away) like Burroughs and Bowles might have found a kind of nourishing solace in an alien environment like Tangiers or whatever. If I ever get the chance I am going to ask this guy what he is all about. It’s starting to feel like I am obligated in some way, to be honest. Then again, perhaps I should be preserving his psychological ecology, or something, and I should probably just give him a wink and a smile.

I have a nasty birthday next week, so I’m in party activist mode this week trying to make sure the damn thing has food and music and guests and stuff. As I’m super stinko-poor I haven’t bought hardly any records in about a year and a half apart from a couple of charity-shop things that were cheap enough for me not to be able to resist. In fact I’ve been trying to sell stuff like mad on Discogs to get the damn things out of my room and make a little dough to survive. Last week I had a good week because Guru died and some Finnish geezer bought a Gang Starr 7″ (Love Sick) I had and a Jackson Sisters LP and the Hi-Tension Record. Also sold some Psychic TV-related thing I only had the second disc of. Anyways money came in and records and mailers went out and then it all fucked up yesterday because I stumbled on a nice little stash of vinyl that seems tailored to the kind of thrash I’m hoping to midwif a week today. So, spent about everything I’ve got to live on but it had to be done.

Not a party track. Or is it?

Also got a Bohannon tune called I’ve Got The Dance Fever which I can’t find on YouTube. Oh yeah and ditto The Enemy Within the Sherwood/LeBlanc Support The Miners record. All 12″!